They’d carved out a good life, she mused. A colorful one, by anyone’s standards, but a good, solid life. Who’d have thought, only a few Christmases ago, either of them would have a real home, and all that went with it?
Even as she thought it, she spotted Leonardo at one of the lighted windows—hard to miss with his big frame draped in a robe swirled with psychotic rainbow ribbons. On his hip Bella, all sunshine curls, bounced—and, yes, jabbered. Mavis slipped into view, and under Leonardo’s free arm.
Nice, Eve thought, a nice little scene of home life in what had once been little more than a place to work and sleep.
Then she watched another scene as Peabody came out.
Strutted out, Eve thought. Oh Jesus, what had they done?
Pink coat, pink boots, a multicolored cap—heavy on the pink—with a fuzzy pink ball on top.
Peabody got in the car with a whoosh of cold air and rain.
“It could snow! They’re saying no way, but I think maybe. Wouldn’t it be sweet if it snowed? Even though we’re heading out tonight, it would be sweet.”
“You’re not allowed to strut.”
“Huh?”
“You can walk,” Eve continued as she pulled away from the curb. “You can stride or clomp. You can run in pursuit. You can hobble if wounded. In certain circumstances you can stroll. But you are not allowed to strut. Cops don’t strut.”
“I was strutting?”
“You look like some sort of pink candy with a fuzzy ball on top. Strutting pink candy. The strutting ceases immediately.”
“Pink candy.” Instead of the insult Eve intended, Peabody appeared pleased. “I love my coat. Love, love my pink magic coat. It makes me feel pretty. Sexy and strong and styling. Therefore I strut.”
“Well, stop it or . . . Crap, is that Drunk Santa currently mooning passing traffic?”
“Wow, that’s some ugly ass he’s got there. It is Drunk Santa. Oh, please, do we have to stop? Think of the smell. Fear it.”
“We can’t leave that ugly ass hanging out on Ninth Avenue.” Resigned, Eve started to pull over, then spotted two hustling beat cops. Pitying them, she kept going.
“It’s a Christmas miracle,” Peabody said, reverently.
“Why do people do that? Why? Why dress up like an icon—which I don’t get anyway. He’s a fat guy with a big white beard in a strange red suit who wants kids sitting on his lap. Kids should be afraid, but instead we make him an icon. Then assholes dress up like him and wave their ugly asses at traffic. What do they get out of it?”
“On a morning like this? A cold, wet ass a
nd a few hours in the drunk tank.”
“True, but somehow that’s not enough. Maybe if they played those poppy, jingling Christmas songs on an endless loop in the tank it would be enough. Maybe.”
“That has to be against the Geneva Convention.”
“And still.”
After parking in the hospital’s underground lot, they rode the elevator up to six. Eve wondered how many sick germs floated around like invisible gnats, just looking for someone to land on.
The woman in the sixth-floor lobby glanced at Eve, nodded in recognition, buzzed her through. Inside, Eve snagged the first nurse she found.
“NYPSD. Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody. We need to talk to Natasha Quigley.”
“She’s Dr. Campo’s. Let me page her, then—”
There was a dramatic crash from a nearby room, followed by wailing.
“I don’t want that slop! I want to go home.”